Month: August 2016

The classic model of scientific progress is that the field advances when new findings contradict or supersede old ones. But a new study reveals that this process isn't working today—at least, not in scientific journals, where most data is shared with colleagues. Indeed, the researchers found that "rebuttals scarcely alter scientific perceptions about the original papers."

For the study, a group of researchers looked at the citation rates on seven marine biology papers about fisheries. Citation rates are often used as a proxy for the "importance" of a scientific paper, with the notion that the more a paper is cited, the more influential it is. Each paper had been the subject of a rebuttal, also published in a scientific journal. The researchers wanted to know whether these rebuttals affected citation levels on the original papers—and, perhaps more importantly, whether they convinced people to question the interpretation of data in the original papers.

It turns out that rebuttals don't seem to affect the scientific community's understanding of the original papers in any way. "The original articles were cited 17 times more frequently than the rebuttals, an order of magnitude difference that overwhelms other factors," write the study authors in Ecosphere. "Our test score results emphasize that rebuttals have little influence: even the rare few authors who happened upon the rebuttals were influenced only enough to move from whole-hearted support of the original article (a score of five) to neutrality (a score of three), despite the fact that all of the rebuttals argue that the interpretations of data in the originals were incorrect. Astonishingly, 8 percent of the papers that cited a rebuttal actually suggested that the rebuttal supported the claims of the original article, an observation which may give pause to those contemplating writing a rebuttal in the future."

Enlarge (credit: Apple)

Apple has just send out press invitations for its next product event, which is happening at 10am Pacific on September 7 in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. This has become Apple's go-to event space in recent years, replacing smaller venues like the Moscone Center, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Apple's own town hall event space (the latter of which was officially retired earlier this year when the iPhone SE was announced).

New iPhones are a sure bet for the event—this year's models aren't expected to deviate too far from the existing iPhone 6S and 6S Plus design, but they're said to include better cameras, faster chips, and no headphone jack. Along with that new hardware, we can also expect release date announcements for macOS Sierra, iOS 10, watchOS 3, and tvOS 10.

Other hardware announcements are definitely possible—practically all of Apple's products are a year or more old at this point—but rumors have been less-than-consistent. A new Apple Watch model and new MacBook Pros are on the more likely end of the spectrum, but the larger iPad Pro and most of the Mac lineup are at least a year old, and a few of the Macs are even older. The fourth-generation Apple TV box is around a year old too, but Apple has never updated its set-top box on a regular yearly cadence the way it has with many of its other products.

Enlarge / Lakes formed by melting permafrost, on peatland. In Hudson Bay, Canada. (credit: Steve Jurvetson)

During the last deglaciation, between roughly 21,000 and 10,000 years ago, there was a rise in atmospheric carbon. This surge brought CO₂ levels up to where they were in preindustrial times and contributed to the warming that ended the glacial period. But there's a significant item missing from this picture: we don't know where the carbon came from.

Researchers had suggested that changes in the distribution of ice, driven by alterations in Earth's orbit and tilt, altered the ocean’s capacity to absorb CO₂. But a new paper performed a model-driven analysis of past changes in carbon levels and come up with a somewhat different answer. The authors' simulations showed that, when a permafrost carbon component was included, it was possible to reproduce the atmospheric CO₂ levels seen in ice core measurements—suggesting that carbon released by melting permafrost contributed to the rise of CO₂.

Carbon accounting

Data from the ice cores can help narrow down the possibilities, because it records something called δ¹³C (delta-thirteen-C), which is essentially a measure of the ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12 in the atmosphere. (It’s mathematically a bit more complicated, but that’s the basic idea). As this ratio is influenced by biological activity, it can give some clues about the carbon's source. Even with these clues, however, previous simulations have failed to narrow down the possibilities. The researchers suspected that was because these weren't taking into account an important mechanism: change in permafrost.

Enlarge / An FBI "Flash" memorandum on state Board of Elections site warns of attacks on two states so far and asks for other states to check their logs.

Someone using servers in the US, England, Scotland, and the Netherlands stole voter registration from one state's Board of Elections website in June and unsuccessfully attacked another state's elections website in August, according to a restricted "Flash" memorandum sent out by the FBI's Cyber Division. The bureau issued the alert requesting other states check for signs of the same intrusion.

The "Flash" memo, obtained by Yahoo News, was published three days after Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson offered state officials assistance in securing election systems during a conference call. According to Yahoo's Michael Isikoff, government officials told him that the attacks were on voter registration databases in Illinois and Arizona. The Illinois system had to be shut down in July for two weeks after the discovery of an attack; the registration information of as many as 200,000 voters may have been exposed.

While saying the Department of Homeland Security was unaware of any specific threat to election systems, Johnson offered states assistance from the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) "to conduct vulnerability scans, provide actionable information and access to other tools and resources for improving cybersecurity," a DHS spokesperson said, describing the conference call. "The Election Assistance Commission, NIST, and DOJ are available to offer support and assistance in protecting against cyber attacks."

Volvo is on somewhat of a roll right now. Under Chinese ownership since 2010, the Swedish car maker has invested $11 billion in all-new vehicle and engine architectures, and the results have been impressive. First out of the gate was the XC90 SUV, one of the best in class, complete with an extremely good infotainment system and plenty of semi-autonomous driver assists. Now, Volvo has followed it up with the S90, a low-slung sedan built on the same Scalable Product Architecture. After spending some time with the S90 on the traffic-filled lanes of Long Island, we can report that the Swedes offer an intriguing alternative to the mid-range luxury offerings from BMW or Mercedes.

Under the skin, the S90 shares a lot with its high-riding SUV sibling. The chassis makes use of lots of high-strength boron steel. The four-cylinder engines are carried over, from the 250hp (187kW) turbocharged T5 to the 316hp (236kW) turbo- and supercharged T6, with a plug-in hybrid T8 version due later this year. You get the same (excellent) Sensus infotainment system and an interior that shares a lot with the SUV, but for a few welcome improvements.

As befits a company investing heavily in autonomous and semi-autonomous driving, the 2017 S90 comes with Volvo's very latest consumer-ready system, called Pilot Assist II. It's installed as standard across the range, and it's extremely good, even compared to the version found in the 2016 XC90s we drove earlier this year. The limitations of the previous iteration are gone—you no longer need a car in front of you for the system to work, and it no longer shuts off at 37mph (60km/h). Combined with a lane keeping assist that no longer bounces you from one side of your lane to the other, this is a Volvo that drives with you.

(credit: T-Mobile)

The new $70-per-month "unlimited data" plans announced by T-Mobile USA this month came with some big limits. Mobile hotspot speeds were to be throttled to 128kbps unless customers paid more, and online video resolution reduced to 480p unless customers paid extra to unlock high-definition video.

But after a wave of criticism from those who think T-Mobile is violating net neutrality and others who think the new deal just isn't that good, the carrier today announced some changes. It's a mixed bag, though, as there is apparently no way to permanently enable high-definition video, and T-Mobile is killing an option that would have let customers buy high-speed hotspot data in 5GB increments.

"The best way to run your company is to shut up, listen to your customers, and then do what they say!" T-Mobile CEO John Legere said in the announcement.